Dumas Prospectus: Once a runner, now a jogger

A lot has changed since I last ran in Hopkinton six months ago. And not just the weather.

By Tim Dumas

OK, I admit it. Never would have even six months ago. But I was a runner then.

And for the 14 years beforehand, I vigorously – to myself anyhow – defended the fact that I was indeed a runner. Not a jogger.

So much has changed since I spent a few hours on an operating table. A stop in Hopkinton for a late-morning run today drove that point home.

School vacations are a time when my daughter is able to spend time with her grandparents on the Cape. We usually meet in Mansfield – halfway between our houses – for the drop-off.

The last time we did this, it was February and I was training for Boston. We had met at 11 a.m., and after I said farewell, I stopped in Hopkinton to get in about 10 miles. And it snowed.

On Monday, the weather wasn’t the only aspect that was different when I returned for a run just off West Main Street.

I have a scar near my right hip now. And I’m much, much slower.

Maybe it was the successive 90-minute runs I had put in over the weekend – the most I’ve run over two days since I had my appendix removed – and maybe it was the fact that I’d been in the car for an hour and a half – but I hardly dipped under nine-minute pace for my 40-minute trot.

Still, it was enjoyable to run on these fairly quiet streets near Whitehall Lake. The reason I chose to run this West Elm Street-Pond Street-School Street-Winter Street “course” in the first place was because it was away from busy streets. And as a bonus, shady, since this time it was 80 degrees.

The last time, it was flurrying when I stashed my car at the Community Covenant Church near the Upton line. And when I returned, 3 inches of snow needed to be brushed off the Nissan Altima I no longer own.

Despite Monday’s shuffling pace, I’m just happy to be able to run. OK jog. I’ve been down to three days per week this summer due to parental duties and uncooperative legs, but I’m starting to feel as if I can approach the six-days-a-week routine I’m used to. Someday.

I started running again with the Squannacook River Runners on Sundays, and with my daughter away for the week, plan to get out each day, despite the call for rain on Wednesday.

I’ve missed the daily runs, but there are benefits to this schedule. No need for speed workouts or hill repeats. I’m simply trying to get my stamina back. Maybe in the fall, I’ll get my base back. I’m already starting to think about signing up for a spring marathon.

It’s all coming back. A little slow, but I’m trying to embrace this phase.

I didn’t run 50 miles per week when I first took up the sport 15 years ago; I can’t expect to be putting in that kind of schedule now. It was if I had to start over from the beginning, post-surgery. But it wasn’t quite that extreme. Only felt that way.

The summer is about to end. My daughter’s next vacation will be at Christmastime, and she’ll probably visit Grandma (provided she isn’t run over by a reindeer).

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